TATER TAUNTED: College Freshman Torches Stelter/CNN at ‘Disinformation’ Conference.
As the final question for the “How Media Platforms Shape Consumer Realities” panel, self-identified “first-year” student Christopher Phillips chided the panel (moderated by the New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg, The Dispatch’s Stephen Hayes, Lauren Williams of Capital B, and Stelter) for attacking Fox News while they themselves had a laundry list of disinformation sins:
You’ve all spoken extensively about Fox News being a purveyor of disinformation. But CNN is right up there with them. They pushed the Russian collusion hoax, they pushed the Jussie Smollett hoax, they smeared Justice Kavanaugh as a rapist, and they also smeared Nick Sandmann as a white supremacist, and yes, they dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop affair as pure Russian disinformation.
That airing of the laundry was followed up with two hard-hitting questions. “With mainstream corporate journalists becoming little more than apologists and cheerleaders for the regime, is it time to finally declare that the canon of journalistic ethics is dead or no longer operative,” he asked in his first.
And in his second question, Phillips made the astute observation that “[a]ll of the mistakes of the mainstream media, and CNN in particular, seem to magically all go in one direction.” And that brought him to wonder: “Are we expected to believe that this is all just some sort of random coincidence or is there something else behind it?”
Stelter was clearly uncomfortable and quipped that it’s “too bad” he couldn’t answer the questions because “it’s time for lunch.” And he didn’t want to get into a discussion about CNN’s lies on camera, telling Phillips, “I’ll come over and talk in more detail after this.”
Of course, in his bloviating that followed, Stelter didn’t actually answer any of Phillips’ questions. He initially scoffed, suggesting the student was “describing a different channel than the one that I watch.” And he dismissed the facts of CNN’s flamboyant bias as just “a popular right-wing narrative about CNN.”
More at our sister site, Townhall: “Stelter added that behind the scenes, outlets help each other out. He used Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall’s injury while reporting in Ukraine as an example. Oh, and the last time Brian spoke with a Biden official, he was yelled at by them or something. Yeah, not so sure how that absolves him or his network of the pervasive incompetence we’ve seen for years, but whatever. There’s no accountability here. We all know this. Everyone who peddled the Russian collusion hoax as fact at CNN and elsewhere deserves to be fired. Someone must be tossed into the meat grinder over this fiasco since it’s one of the biggest journalistic failures in recent memory.”
As Sohrab Ahmari tweets, “How delicious: Thanks to brave and smart student questioners, the Atlantic’s ‘anti-disinfo’ fest is turning into a sustained critique of elite-media disinformation. And the likes of Applebaum and Stelter appear so arrogant and dismissive. Kudos, lads! We’re cheering from home.”
Earlier: Atlantic Staff Writer Anne Applebaum Says The Hunter Biden Laptop Story Was Not ‘Interesting’ … At ‘Disinformation’ Conference.